and to mutiny if ever they sighted the _Royal James_. It behooved
Blackbeard to press on to that lonely inlet on the North Carolina coast
and avoid the open sea until he could prepare to fight this dangerous
foeman.

It surprised Jack Cockrell to see how quiet a pirate ship could be. The
ruffians were bone-weary, for one thing, after the struggle to bring the
vessel through the storm. And the scourge of tropic fever had left its
marks. Moreover, the rum was running short because some of the casks had
been staved in the heavy weather and Blackbeard was doling it out as
grog with an ample dilution of water. There was no more dicing and
brawling and tipsy choruses. Sobered against their will, some of these
bloody-minded sinners talked repentance or shed tears over wives and
children deserted in distant ports.

The wind blew fair until the _Revenge_ approached the landmarks familiar
to Blackbeard and found a channel which led to the wide mouth of
Cherokee Inlet. It was a quiet roadstead sheltered from seaward by
several small islands. The unpeopled swamp and forest fringed the shores
but a green meadow and a margin of white sand offered a favorable place
for landing. As the _Revenge_ slowly rounded the last wooded point, the
tall mast of a sloop became visible. The pirates cheered and discharged
their muskets in salute as they recognized one of the consorts which had
been blown away in the storm.

Blackbeard strutted on his quarter-deck, no longer biting his nails in
fretful anxiety. He had donned the military coat with the glittering
buttons and epaulets and the huge cocked hat with the feather in it. He
noted that the sloop, which was called the _Triumph_, fairly buzzed with
men, many more than her usual complement. No sooner had the ship let her
anchor splash than a boat was sent over to her with the captain of the
sloop who made haste to pay his compliments and explain his voyage. He
was a portly, sallow man with a blustering manner and looked more like a
bailiff or a tapster than a brine-pickled gentleman of fortune.

Blackbeard hailed him cordially and invited him into the cabin. The boat
waited alongside the _Revenge_ and the men scrambled aboard to swap
yarns with the ship's crew. Jack Cockrell hovered near the group as
they squatted on their heels around a tub of grog and learned that the
_Triumph_ had rescued the crew of the other sloop just before it had
foundered. There were a hundred men of them, in all, cro